After one great and one not-so-great football game on Saturday (I'll refrain from saying which is which), Ben and I took off to spend the rest of Labor Day weekend hiking for the first time since our knee-killing hike of July 4th weekend (described in this post). As far as my knee goes, I was diagnosed with IT Band Syndrome, probably combined with some patellofemoral pain (i.e., "Runner's Knee," which is hilarious because I DON'T RUN), and have been doing physical therapy for the past four weeks. This was really the best diagnosis I could get, because it's relatively easily treatable, as evidenced by the fact that my knee has been feeling normal for at least a week or so. So I was definitely ready to get back into the hiking game.
We decided to hike in/around Pearisburg, Virginia, again, this time meeting our shuttle driver, Don, at the Co-op again, but shuttling south of town instead of north, to Big Horse Gap.
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| Don was nice enough to take a photo before he left us. |
We then planned to hike back to the Co-op, spend the night at a hotel close-by, and hopefully let me knock out the five-ish miles I missed from the last hike (when my knee declared mutiny) the following morning. I wasn't lying when I said I don't really love camping, so if there's an option to spend the night in a hotel instead of on the trail, I'm taking it. Plus, I was a little nervous about how this first adventure post-injury would go, and if we carried day packs instead of overnight packs, that's at least 20 fewer pounds my knee would be carrying.
Anyway, so we started at Big Horse Gap, which, interestingly is on top of the ridge (typically you hike down to a gap, but apparently not always). That meant no strenuous climb on this hike, which made Ben happy. From the elevation profile, the hike looked relatively easy, just rolling gently up and down on the ridgetop, until the last three-ish miles, when it took a pretty steep drop back down to Pearisburg. I knew the descent at the end would really test my knee(s), but I was looking forward to seeing whether my knee is really healed at this point or if it just feels okay because I haven't been hiking.
While, on paper, the hike looked relatively easy (until the end), it actually was decently difficult just due to the nature of the terrain (I should know by now that there's no "easy" AT hike). There were lots of rocks, big and small, some hidden in grassy parts of the trail so that you stepped on their big jagged edges and stabbed your feet from time to time.
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| There are rocks hidden in this crazy summer undergrowth. And also probably chiggers. [Shudder] |
By the halfway point, our feet were bruised pretty good, and by the time we got to the descent at the end, our ankles and calves were sore from the constant balancing act involved in walking on rocks that may or may not move when you shift weight on them. THEN we started the downhill, which was every bit as difficult (for me) as I imagined (Ben, of course, is BFFs with a downhill grade, so he was cool).
To make a long story short, I MADE IT (YAY!), but we were both pretty sore (all over; not just my knee) after the hike. There were a couple of times that I got a sharp, shooting pain through my knee (the kind that makes you gasp like you've just seen a massive snake or something), but overall, my right knee didn't feel any worse than my left one (there's always some knee pain involved in long-distance hiking for me). My physical therapist did tape my knee on Thursday, and I wore my new Cho-Pat brace (recommended in several hiking forums) on the downhill, so I'm sure both of those things contributed to my success.
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| If you don't have one of these and you have knee trouble on downhills, I highly recommend trying it out. |
The hike wasn't one of my favorites, as it didn't have a ton of opportunities for views even though we were on top of the ridge for most of the day. There were a few opportunities, though, and they didn't disappoint.
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| View from the Wilburn Valley overlook |
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| View from a power line easement. I kind of hate that it ruins the "unspoiled nature" aspect of the trail, but these easements create some great views EVERY TIME, and as you'll see later, unfortunately you don't always get "unspoiled nature" anyway. |
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| Family hiking selfie at the Angel's Rest overlook - I looked forward to this one pretty much all day because I had heard it was pretty spectacular. |
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| Little devil taking a rest at Angel's Rest. |
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| One of my favorite things about these views is looking at where we've been and where we'll be going. We passed through the power line easement to the right side of the far ridge on our last hike (views available in my last post). In my hike the following morning, I would be starting at the bottom (on the back side) of the closest ridge (much shorter than the far ridge) and hiking up and over (around the landfill thing in the middle). |
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| The New River from Angel's Rest. |
We saw a pretty good-sized bear (from a distance, thankfully), so that was cool. We also saw a bunch of AT survey markers, which I haven't seen before this point.
There wasn't any water for Tigger to play in on this hike, so I'm sure it wasn't one of his favorites, either (although the weather was nice and the humidity was low, so he didn't get TOO hot). But he got rewarded with some playtime in the New River after we finished for the day.
Then I got up this morning and Ben drove me to the point where he had to come pick me up on our last hike, and I hiked from there back to the Co-op (where Ben picked me back up) so I could finish the last hike. It turns out I had only missed about four miles on the last one instead of the five I thought I missed, but that doesn't really matter because I probably couldn't have done even one more mile last time.
I love hiking with Ben, but there was something really cool about being on the trail all by myself first thing in the morning. The weather was great, and I didn't see another person while I was out there. One obvious downside is that, without someone hiking in front of me, I was the one clearing out all the spider webs that had been built across the trail overnight (and by "clearing out," I mean "wrapping them around myself").
I didn't miss a lot in this section of the trail, as there were no views and it was really just a "get from point A to point B kind of thing." It's also one of the more urban/industrial sections of the trail once you get near the end, and sometimes that's a pretty stark contrast to be in the woods all day and then find yourself next to a factory. For example, I saw one deer on this morning's hike, but it was behind a chain link fence that marked off a landfill site. The hike ended with a walk down a road, past a factory, up some steps, and across a highway bridge to the Co-op.
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| Civilization from Sunday's hike: low-hung telephone (I hope?) wires across the trail. |
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| From Monday's hike: you know I like getting pictures of the various creative ways white blazes appear. This one on a light pole was a first for me. |
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| And here's one on a staircase next to a factory. |
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| The highway bridge that finished out the hike. |
Sometimes it's nice to have some signs of civilization (especially when you know you're hiking toward a hotel and a big dinner); it's just different.
~98.4 down; ~2091.6 to go.
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